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I've noticed that there are a few board-gamers on these forums, but no thread other than a few scatter shot suggestion threads, and the odd thread for specific games. High time we corrected that, I say.

So bring your questions, your play reports, your reviews and especially your general enthusiasm for dice, chits, cards, wooden blocks and paper money.
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My wife and I played Eminent Domain at PAX last year. Deck builders are one of her favorite genres. We enjoyed it, but I haven't felt the urge to pick it up. I also felt that the space theme was pretty easy to ignore.

For $50 to get the base and expansion through their Kickstarter (which just finished), I jumped in.

The local group that I consulted likened it to "an easier to teach/play version of Race for the Galaxy". I liked that it looked like a 4x game crammed into a deck builder, but after watching that playthrough it appears that some of those mechanics are just lightly borrowed.

I sold my copy of Eminent Domain after playing it twice. It's mechanically sound but absolutely soulless. It's easier to teach and play than RftG, and it's far less random, but it's also just not as much fun. I'd strongly suggest you play it once or twice before buying it.

Finally played my copy of Libertalia tonight and everyone enjoyed it. For such a simple game, it's amazing how terrible that rulebook is, and it still leaves a lot of vagueness regarding the card abilities. (Do you round up or down? If you tie for the least characters in your den, do you still get the ability? Can your brute kill itself?) Not cool. Still a solid game. I like the SU&SD review, and agree that you cant let yourself get bogged down in minmax bookkeeping or it will ruin the fun.

Also played Drizzt again tonight. It felt really anticlimactic and poorly paced - a troll early on gave us a lot of trouble, but it was pretty smooth sailing after that. I also felt that with 5 players there was a LOT of time between turns and people were getting bored. I think I'm going to read the rules to Descent 2.0 and see if I think that would make a good replacement. I only have room for one dungeon crawler in my library and I think I can do better than Drizzt. Thoughts?

I only have room for one dungeon crawler in my library and I think I can do better than Drizzt. Thoughts?

Mice & Mystics seems to be one of the hot ones, although I think a few people have said there's a slight lack of replayability for the scenarios.

Yeah, right now I'd say Descent 2nd Ed and Mice and Mystics are the two best I've played. Preference really comes down to theme - D&D-esque adventures, or Redwall-esque adventures?

I would also comment that Descent is slightly more complex, with more options for things like actions and the like each round (though not by a huge amount). M&M should be able to be played by a slightly younger audience. That's not to say it's boringly simple, just comparatively speaking. They're both fun, though, and I personally love the charm of the M&M — it's clear that a lot of care was put into the theme and storytelling of each scenario. The theme has a lot more appeal to me than Descent's Generic D&D Fantasy Setting #26™.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

A giant Cthulu alien just threw the top of Big Ben at Abraham Lincoln's airship.

I sold my copy of Eminent Domain after playing it twice. It's mechanically sound but absolutely soulless. It's easier to teach and play than RftG, and it's far less random, but it's also just not as much fun. I'd strongly suggest you play it once or twice before buying it.

This is how I felt about it. I didn't hate it or anything, I'd play Eminent Domain again if one of my friends wanted to, but compared to RftG it's just no contest for me.

Brute can kill itself, you have to win outright, and rounding is covered in the errata at the end of the book. When in doubt just be very literal with that game (or check bgg )

We did eventually check BGG, but having to do so repeatedly for such a simple game is ridiculous IMO. I mean, the rulebook is only six pages, would it have killed them to add an extra one?

I've been following Mice and Mystics a bit, and while the theme is charming I'm afraid it will come across as too childish for my group. I agree that I'd like something more than a generic D&D setting, but I'm not sure a fairy tale is the answer. I'll read the rules for both and see what clicks.

Played Get Bit! with the family this morning. It went over well. I'm trying a few of these taster games to get them in the mood for something deeper. Kids had fun making chomping sounds and my wife concluded it will make an excellent drinking game (but not with the kids )

I'll still toss Gears of War out there as a fantastic dungeon crawler. It is probably my favorite purely cooperative crawler. Very challenging but I find the mechanics quite satisfying; nice mix of luck with good tactical decision making. Descent 2nd edition is quite good overall, but I put it in a different class than the pure coops like Drizzt, Ashardalon, Mice and Mystics, etc.

Played Get Bit! with the family this morning. It went over well. I'm trying a few of these taster games to get them in the mood for something deeper. Kids had fun making chomping sounds and my wife concluded it will make an excellent drinking game (but not with the kids )

Speaking of Get Bit!... the prequel, Walk The Plank! is on Kickstarter right now -- the pledge drive is ending in 68 hours, and a mere $18 gets you a copy of the game. And a pack of card sleeves per every 1000 Facebook "likes", if you're into that sort of thing.

Honestly I may have to book another stay at the castle simply to learn how to GM Pathfinder from Mono. Not sure what I would do with the wife, however. I shudder to set her loose at the antiques shops.

This weekend was filled with gaming goodness with my son. He's 10 and I'm thrilled that he's starting to get the mechanics for games such as Dungeon Command and even Android: Netrunner.

This weekend we played Dungeon Command, Netrunner, and King of Tokyo. He still hates it when I kill his Copper Dragon in Dungeon Command.

A Cigar, much like Scotch and Monogamy, is an acquired taste.

McChuck wrote:

I'd recommend the Scottish martial art known as f*ck You. It's mostly just head butting and then kicking people when they're on the ground.

Played another game of Relic yesterday with my fiance. I really like this game. I've also discovered that she has hilariously hot dice all the time. I do not. This leads to really uneven games of Relic. Yesterday, I was up against a 2 red gretchin or something. She proceeds to roll a series of four exploding dice in a row, giving the guy a total score in the mid-20s. This happened several times throughout the game. It finally ended with her winning, while I couldn't manage to get into the middle tier. The one time I hit the corner space that let you pay $2 to move to the middle, I only had $1, then couldn't get back there when I scrounged up another buck.

Anyone check out Teramyyd: Earthsphere on Kickstarter? I'm thinking it looks kind of interesting, though I'm a sucker for ship combat with minis. The difference is that this has a steampunk airship vibe and it has dragons/magic. There seems to be a lot going on.

I haven't decided if I will kick in yet or not.

Edit: And kicked in at the $75 level.

A Cigar, much like Scotch and Monogamy, is an acquired taste.

McChuck wrote:

I'd recommend the Scottish martial art known as f*ck You. It's mostly just head butting and then kicking people when they're on the ground.